"Unfortunate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... o'clock in the evening we weighed from the road and put to sea; one unfortunate Javanese seaman was by accident left on shore, but he spoke a language which most of these people understand. I therefore hope it might be the means of saving his life, but as their rage, when once roused, does not quickly ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... to a man to see that a person has conceived an aversion to him. For my own part, I quickly found, by the lady's looks, that she regarded me as a very odd kind of fellow, with an unfortunate aspect; for which reason I took my leave immediately after dinner, and withdrew ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... blushes, as she recalled her words; and yet she scarce knew the reason why. The feeling of Beulah was different. She wondered her sister could ever think she was a Meredith, and not a Willoughby. At times she feared some unfortunate oversight of her own, some careless allusion, or indiscreet act, might have served to remind Maud of the circumstances of her real birth. Yet there was nothing in the last likely to awaken unpleasant ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... endangered by any cause that can fairly be removed, is guilty, not less in Christian than in natural law. Charity begins at home; and while the people of the United States have gladly offered an asylum to millions upon millions of the distressed and unfortunate of other lands and climes, they have no right to carry their hospitality one step beyond the line where American institutions, the American rate of wages, the American standard of living are brought into serious peril. Our highest duty ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... excitement and confusion. Boatmen swarmed about in rival application for employment, while all the rascals in the place seemed to have assembled together for the occasion: those who had bills, wanting to get them paid; and those who were either lucky or unfortunate enough to have none, wanting to open them as soon as possible with the new comers. What with these and pistol practice and rifle shooting from upper casements across the river, in order to expend spare ammunition, the European quarter was a very Babel all day long, and we were not sorry to ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... Too few! How very unfortunate, Watson! However, such as they are you can put them in your watchpocket. And all the rest of your money in your left trouser pocket. Thank you. It will balance you so ...
— The Adventure of the Dying Detective • Arthur Conan Doyle
... been unfortunate in the matter of burglaries of late. There had been three within as many weeks. One had taken place at Walker's, the principal jewellers in the High Street; another at the Grand Hotel, where a popular London dancer, Cora Anatolia by name, had been robbed of all her jewellery; and now this one of ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... he tried to do nothing else. This partial skill undoubtedly had lured him to the drive. But as soon as he tried to work, he was in trouble. The log commenced to roll; he to struggle for his balance. It always ended with a mighty splash and a shout of joy from every one in sight, as the unfortunate youth soused in all over. Then, after many efforts, he dragged himself out, his garments heavy and dripping, and cautiously tried to gain the perpendicular. This ordinarily required several attempts, each of which meant another ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... clear before it, though twenty years may lie between it and the actual sight of the printed page. At his worst he is like an advertisement hoarding, crude, violent, vulgar, but impossible to escape. The essay on Croker's Boswell is one of those unfortunate moments. It is, unhappily, far better known than its author's article on Johnson written for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and its violence still takes the memory by assault. No one forgets the disgusting description of Johnson, or the insults heaped upon Boswell. Least of all can anybody ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... Lords Castlewood—Thomas, and Francis pere et fils—their creator has not taken so much trouble with them; but they are never "out". The least of a piece, I think, is Rachel's too fortunate or too unfortunate husband. The people who regard Ibsen's great triumph in the Doll's House as consisting in the conduct of the husband as to the incriminating documents, ought to admire Thackeray's management of the temporary loss of Rachel's ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... felt the unequal operation of laws which may have been unwisely, not unconstitutionally passed; but that inequality must necessarily be removed. At the very moment when you were madly urged on to the unfortunate course you have begun, a change in public opinion has commenced. The nearly approaching payment of the public debt, and the consequent necessity of a diminution of duties, had already caused a considerable reduction, and that, too, on some ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... never exactly repented of this marriage, I have never had the courage to acknowledge it openly. If I had not married Julia, I fear Polly Ochiltree would have married me by main force,—as she would marry you or any other gentleman unfortunate enough to fall in the way of this twice-widowed man-hunter. When my wife died, three years ago, her sister Polly offered to keep house for me and the child. I would sooner have had the devil in the house, and ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... follows: but a material fallacy often underlies this form of argument in the tacit assumption that the alternatives offered in the minor constitute an exhaustive division. Thus the dilemma 'If pain is severe, it will be brief; and if it last long it will be slight,' &c., leaves out of sight the unfortunate fact that pain may both be severe and of long continuance. Again the ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... Pennsylvania Railroad are slowly making their way east to the unfortunate city. No effort was being made to repair the wrecks, and the crews of the trains were organized into rescuing parties, and an effort will be made to send out a mail train this morning. The chances ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... contesting; but my lord And Pylades with dauntless courage stood Oppos'd, and shook their spears. Orestes then Thus spoke: "I come not to this state a foe, Nor to my servants; but my father's death I on his murderer have aveng'd; you see Th' unfortunate Orestes: kill me not, My father's old attendants." At these words They all restrain'd their spears, and he was known By one grown hoary in the royal house. Crowns on thy brother's head they instant plac'd ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... without it, give to this affair, otherwise simply brutal, a dramatic interest which will be appreciated not only by the very able detectives already hot upon the chase, but by all other inquiring minds anxious to solve a mystery of which so estimable a woman has been the unfortunate victim. A problem is presented ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... people are sure to do, hearers and readers feel the difference in a moment. Mr. Beecher is a strong, healthy man, in mind and body. His nerves have never been corrugated with alcohol; his thinking-marrow is not brown with tobacco-fumes, like a meerschaum, as are the brains of so many unfortunate Americans; he is the same lusty, warm-blooded, strong-fibred, brave-hearted, bright-souled, clear-eyed creature that he was when the college boys at Amherst acknowledged him as the chiefest among their football-kickers. He has the simple frankness of a man who feels himself to be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... by name, we now took in hand. I arranged that the catechist who had been appointed to the Kettle Point Mission should take two little boys into his family, and train them up to a Christian and useful life. One of them was to be Willie, and the other a grandchild of the unfortunate man who was murdered—Tommy Winter. So, a few days before Joshua Greenbird was expected, we brought Willie and Tommy to our house in Sarnia to prepare them for entering upon their new life. The first thing ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... said Lake; 'but the unfortunate girl, you were going to say—thank you. She's, of course, very much to be pitied, and you have my leave to pity her as much ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... across we started. Out 500 feet from the landing on the east side where we went in, the ferryman got afraid the sheep were too far forward and would tip the boat, so he attempted to push them back, and pushed some of the sheep off in the river. All the sheep then made a rush to follow the unfortunate ones. Barney Hill, who was on the back end of the boat, got knocked off and could not swim and the boys had a good laugh at him climbing over the sheep, looking like a drowned rat trying to get out of a molasses ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... beautiful in its own way, here, as we found it yesterday, out there," returned Randolph. "I've asked my brother-in-law, I don't know how many times, why they can't do better by this unfortunate campus and bring it all up to a reasonable level ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... remarkable for its power, remarkable for its originality, and remarkable for its success. The unique masterpiece of an unfortunate young author, who died without knowing the unstinted praise his work was to receive. The book portrays with striking realism a phase of Scottish life and character new to most novel-readers. John Gourlay, the chief personage in the drama, inhabitant of the "House With the Green Shutters" and master ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... It was unfortunate to be warmly devoted to a master who had no fear, whom he was obliged to serve as a messenger of love, and who now probably scarcely knew himself whither this ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... down, dead, at the corner of a street. Pursuing the horse with incredible speed, was another man, who ran so fast, that he came up, immediately after the accident. He threw himself upon his knees beside the unfortunate rider, and clasped his hand with an expression of the wildest grief. 'If you have life,' he said, 'speak one word to me! If you have one gasp of breath left, mention your age for Heaven's sake, that I may play ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... are, difficult questions of Greek martial history. He is no regular agriculturist, yet he conveys a good general impression of the Greek condition with relation to landed wealth or landed skill, as modified at this moment by the unfortunate restraints on a soil handed over, in its best parts, by a Turkish aristocracy that had engrossed them, to a Bavarian that cannot use them. In short, Mr. Mure is simply a territorial gentleman; elevated enough to have stood a contest for the representation of a great Scottish ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... he admitted. "But you must remember that suspicion is of itself a grievous embarrassment. No man likes to feel that he is being suspected of murder. By the bye, is it known whom the unfortunate person was?" ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... spare for him, the returned prodigal. What does it profit a man to gain the wealth of California and lose his own soul? Had he lost his soul, then? He had proved unfaithful to his friend. Or had he been simply unfortunate? Ah, well! he hardly knew. He was eager to see Robert Palmer again in the world to which he was hastening. Then he would confess all, and be forgiven. For Robert Palmer had loved him like a son. Yes, that was what made ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... and the landlord, half-dreaming, ran off to fetch him—a most unfortunate circumstance, as it put the rogue upon his guard, and prepared him for the part which it was necessary for his safety that he should play. The landlord returned in two minutes, dragging Grute in with him. I saw by the sudden pallor ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various
... room, as if to seek his brother, but Mr. Belmont well knew it was to conceal his emotion; no other person seemed to notice Ellen's unfortunate ejaculation, and when the door was closed, Mr. Belmont congratulated the parents upon a circumstance so honourable and desirable to their younger son; and as they well knew the sincerity of his character, and the affection he felt for Charles, ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... at an unfortunate period in the history of human progress. The early part of the seventeenth century was not a time when an enthusiastic and aggressive and liberal-minded reformer could expect much of a hearing anywhere in western Europe. The shock ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... an honorable man. But he has been singularly unfortunate in his family. His brother and his sons, who seem to have taken more after their uncle than their father, have all turned out badly and given him much ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... turning back the sleeves of the unfortunate white linen, picked up the other sword, and practiced his fingering on the silver hilt, while the blade answered as delicately as the bow to a violinist. At last he came forward, with thin lips and hard, thoughtful eyes, like a man bent upon dispatch. Both men saluted ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... big man coming down, hurriedly, and with heavy steps. We stood dodging each other a moment with that unfortunate co-ordination of purpose men sometimes encounter when passing each other. Suddenly the big man stopped in the middle of the stairway and held both of his hands ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... In an unfortunate moment he insulted Count Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador, who determined to be revenged, and persuaded the Pope to send the most flattering offers if he would return to his former faith. Pope Gregory XV., a relative of De Dominis, had just ascended the Papal throne. The bait took. De Dominis, ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... disgrace, this sacrifice. Absolutely, shame was not in these women, though they swore to shameful facts. They had been coached to give these baffling answers, every one of which seemed to brand them, not the brazen mothers of illegitimate offspring, but faithful, unfortunate sealed wives. To Shefford the truth was not in their words, but it sat upon ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... learned of it. Followed by Black-tip and one or two others of the more adventurous sort, he set out upon the trail of the outlier, now full fed, ran it down at the end of four or five miles' hard galloping, pinned the unfortunate creature to the earth and shook it into the long sleep, almost before they had come to a standstill together. This was true leadership the pack felt, a thing Lupus would never have done; something to be placed ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... when I tell you how it happened," was Aunt Judy's rejoinder. "The fact was, that one unfortunate day one of the Tods disappeared. Whether it lead been left out of the basket when grandmamma's bell rang, and so got swept away by the nurse and burnt, I cannot say; but, at any rate, when the children went to their play one morning, 'Softy,' ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... Muller is obliged to criticise the system of De Brosses, who introduced this rather unfortunate term to science, in an admirable work, 'Le Culte des Dieux Fetiches' (1760). We call the work 'admirable,' because, considering the contemporary state of knowledge and speculation, De Brosses's book is brilliant, original, and ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... short remark on Pascal, the very error which has led the author of the article in the British Quarterly Review, as well as many others, to mistake the Bishop of Meaux for the editor of Pascal's works. Once more, that unfortunate editor is BOSSUT, not BOSSUET; and if it may appear to some that the difference of one letter in a name is not of much consequence, yet it is from an error as trifling as this that people of my acquaintance confound Madame de Stael ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... see one who has been made a better man or a better citizen by this higher education; on the contrary, I know of very many who have been morally and socially ruined by it." We are sorry that his acquaintance has been so unfortunate with this class. Others have had the happiness to know scores and hundreds of well-educated colored people who are doing great credit to their race as ministers, physicians, editors, lawyers, teachers and authors. ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 08, August, 1885 • Various
... Mlle. Duval. They are dangling her before him, but he will be the dupe of those Machiavels in the Val-Noble to whom he is going to sacrifice his position. Camusot, this affair, so unfortunate as it is for the d'Esgrignons, so insidiously brought on by the President for du Croisier's benefit, will turn out well for nobody but you," she had said, as they ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... who, through total disuse, have lost the power of kindly human speech and can only scold and complain: there are men who grumble and nag from inveterate habit even when they are comfortable. But their unfortunate spouses and ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... overwhelm the mass of mankind, and make liberty a convenient handle for mock patriotism. For whilst rank and titles are held of the utmost importance, before which Genius "must hide its diminished head," it is, with a few exceptions, very unfortunate for a nation when a man of abilities, without rank or property, pushes himself forward to notice. Alas! what unheard of misery have thousands suffered to purchase a cardinal's hat for an intriguing obscure adventurer, who longed to be ranked ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... Barry was a young widow with three children. She had tried to earn a living for them in a hosiery mill at Amsterdam, New York. For herself her endeavor to work as a mill hand was singularly unfortunate, for during her first week she earned but sixty-five cents. But if she did not during that week master any of the processes concerned in the making of machine-made stockings, she learned a good deal more than this, a good deal more than she ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... and in less than an hour the answer came back, to the effect that Mr. Rufus Van Torp's statement was correct in every detail; and without any interval another official message arrived, revoking the request for his extradition, which 'had been made under a most unfortunate misapprehension, due to the fact that Mr. Van Torp's visit to the Secretary of the Treasury had been regarded ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... rage was in the heart of every man at the sight they were forced to see, but were powerless to prevent. Even among such hard-bitten old salts as they all were, more than one could be seen mumbling a prayer for the unfortunate men who had put up such ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... meantime the answer came from Paris, and the unfortunate lady did not know that the boy who sat beside her bed so pale, now belonged only to her, and that no one else had any right to him. Neither did she know about another message—yes, even two; one coming from Hamburg ...
— The Three Comrades • Kristina Roy
... occurred an act on the part of some of the garrison most deeply to be regretted, and not to be excused by the natural indignation at their recall,—an act which, through the unfortunate eloquence of one newspaper correspondent, rang through the nation,—the attempt to burn the town. I fortunately need not dwell much upon it, as I was not at the time in command of the post,—as the white soldiers frankly took upon themselves the whole responsibility,—and as all the fires were made ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... writing verses the drama of Vicente was an innovation and Jo[a]o de Barros would quite naturally refer (as Andr['e] de Resende before him) to the poet-goldsmith as Gil Vicente comico. On the other hand there is an almost brutal egoism in the silence concerning his unfortunate uncle (or cousin) maintained by Gil Vicente, who refers to himself as poet more than once, with evident pride in his autos. Recently General Brito Rebello (1830-1920), whose researches helped to give shape and substance to Gil Vicente's life, discovered a document of 1535 in which the poet's ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... said, "you have a noble heart; I grieve to see how it abuses your reason. I cannot aid Lilian Ashleigh in the way you ask. Do not start back so indignantly. Listen to me as patiently as I have listened to you. That when you brought back the unfortunate young woman to her poor mother, her mind was disordered, and became yet more dangerously so, I can well believe; that she is now recovered, and thinks with shame, or refuses to think at all, of her imprudent flight, I can believe also; but I do not believe, the ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... according to the Swedish laws, the offence of which Miss Rudenskjoeld was found guilty, could not be punished by the lash. The pillory, and imprisonment in the Zuchthaus, the place of confinement for the most guilty and abandoned of her sex, formed the scarce milder sentence pronounced upon the unfortunate victim. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... festivities had not been so discreetly conducted as to accord with the general policy of Beaver Beach. An unfortunate incident caused the arrest of one of the celebrators and the ambulancing to the hospital of another on the homeward way, the ensuing proceedings in court bringing to the whole affair a publicity devoutly unsought for. Mr. Happy Fear (such was the habitual name of the imprisoned ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... turning point in your career; go back to your painting, retrieve your skill, and work to some purpose and for some worthy object. If you do not need the money such work will bring, for your own support, use it for the good of others—of those unfortunate ones, perchance, whose lives have been blighted, as mine was blighted, by those 'hundreds ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Paul's,—which I believe was, by the way, first made out of the stones of a temple to Diana. Of the two, certainly, you had better serve your country with a goose-quill than by poking a bayonet into the ribs of some unfortunate Indian; I don't think there are any other people whom the service of one's country makes it necessary to kill just ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of Gloucester, who grew up to eleven years, dying in July 1700. After his death Anne signed, in private letters, 'your unfortunate' friend. ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... unfortunate German's vote and he went sore and bleeding home and satisfied, no doubt, that this is a great country, and that the American Eagle will continue to be a deeply interesting bird while his wings are in the hands of patriots like the above. Scenes like the above (only our description ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... eager to get back to my charge. The melancholy of the moor, the death of the unfortunate pony, the weird sound which had been associated with the grim legend of the Baskervilles, all these things tinged my thoughts with sadness. Then on the top of these more or less vague impressions there had come the ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... families that had never loved the old order but which distinctly disliked the new, and who opened their doors to the adherents of both. There is a house which has become Grey out of a sort of superstition inspired by the unfortunate circumstances which oddly coincided with each movement of its members to join the new order. There is another, and one of the greatest, in which a very high hereditary dignity in the one party, still exercised by force ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... pronounced to be of a decidedly abolitionist tendency. The offensive preachers, after sowing, God only knows what seed in this tremendous soil, where one grain of knowledge may spring up a gigantic upas tree to the prosperity of its most unfortunate possessors, were summarily and ignominiously expulsed; and now some short sighted, uncomfortable Christians in these parts, among others this said Parson S——, are possessed with the notion that something ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... the polluted air as though he heeded not. But is he contented? Does he not instinctively long for the freedom of the forest and the plain? Yes, he is a lion still. Our poor and forlorn brother whom thou hast labelled "slave," is also a man. He may be unfortunate, weak, helpless, and despised, and hated, nevertheless he is a man. His God and thine has stamped on his forehead his title to his inalienable rights in characters that can be read by every intelligent being. Pitiless storms of outrage may have ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... had found himself compelled to support a measure which had since been carried by those very men from whom he had been obliged on this account to divide himself. It had always been felt by his old friends that he had been, if not ill-used, at least very unfortunate. He had been twelve months in advance of his party, and had consequently been driven out into the cold. So when the names of good men and true were mustered, and weighed, and discussed, and scrutinised by some active members of the Liberal party in a certain very private room not ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... she objected to the match, wishing with ardour that Ethel might marry far more brilliantly, she believed as fully in the honest warm kindliness of Fred Ryley as in that of Ethel. 'And what else matters after all?' she tried to think.... Her reverie shifted to Rose, unfortunate Rose, victim of peculiar ambitions, of a weak digestion, and of a harsh temperament that repelled the sympathy it craved but was too proud to invite. She felt that she ought to go upstairs and talk to the prostrate Rose ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... are known by the appearance of the water over them, the seas breaking less at those particular places than in the spots where the bottom lies nearer to the surface, and all experienced mariners are aware of the fact. No doubt, the unfortunate master of this ship, finding himself reduced to the necessity of running ashore to save the lives of his crew, has chosen such a place, and has consequently forced his vessel up to a spot where she has remained dry as soon as the sea fell. So worthy a fellow deserved a better ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... situation of these unfortunate orphans. Left without fortune, without protection, in this joyless abode, life presented a gloomy prospect before them; yet, how were they to enter a world in which they would feel themselves total strangers, and of the ways of ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... Charles Kemble now! And how little they suspect me!" In the later letter from Lucerne written as he was travelling home, he adds: "Did I ever tell you the details of my theatrical idea, before? Strange, that I should have quite forgotten it. I had an odd fancy, when I was reading the unfortunate little farce at Covent-garden, that Bartley looked as if some struggling recollection and connection were stirring up within him—but it may only have been his doubts of that humorous composition." The last allusion is to the farce of ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... should build a city there, and leave some of his followers to be governors of the place. For this cause he there founded a city, which he called, from the name of Apollo, Pythopolis, and, in honor of the unfortunate youth, he named the river that runs by it Soloon, and left the two surviving brothers entrusted with the care of the government and laws, joining with them Hermus, one of the nobility of Athens, from whom a place in the city ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... unfortunate man hed got into the middle uv a quotashen from the speech uv our noble and patriotic President, and knowin his intellek wuzn't hefty enough to git it off jist as it wuz originally delivered, I took him by the throat, and shet off ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... of Buena Vista, with its desultory custom and few, lingering, impecunious guests. Here, too, his old Virginian ideas of hospitality were against his financial success; he could not dun nor turn from his door those unfortunate prospectors whom the ebbing fortunes of Buena Vista had left stranded by ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... extended his hand. "How do you do, Mr. Grell? I should have been glad to have met you under happier circumstances, but I assure you that the respect in which I have always held you is not lessened by this unfortunate business." ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... should take. He wanted to know the contents of the letter: he must know: and therefore he must ask me, for evidently his wife had taunted him. At the same time, no doubt, he would like to wreak untold vengeance on my unfortunate person. So he eyed me, and I eyed him, and neither of us spoke. He did not want to repeat his request to me. And yet I only looked ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... It is unfortunate that this system was not in operation in January, 1908, when the water was cold and turbid. The results, however, indicate that it would be no more successful than either Filter Plant ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXXII, June, 1911 • E. D. Hardy
... consideration of its resemblance to base-ball, what proof have we of its venerable existence? Looking, primarily, to the first editions of old English authorities on out-door sports, I have been unable to find any record that such a game as "rounders" was known. I may have been unfortunate in my searches, for, though I have exhausted every available source of information, I have not discovered any mention ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... unfortunate as not to be able to number you among my particular friends; but one strong sentiment we have in common. We both ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... something of a fight for them, but it was the Sainte-Beuve of almost the earliest years (1831), when, according to a weakness of beginners in criticism, he was a little inclined "to be different," for the sake of difference. Against Cleveland even he lifts up his heel, though in a rather unfortunate manner, declaring the reading of the greater part to be "aussi fade que celle d'Amadis." Now to some of us the reading of Amadis is not "fade" at all. But he finds some philosophical and psychological passages of merit. Over the Memoires d'un Homme de Qualite—that huge and ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... lord. When she saw that her lord was dead the queen seized the child with a cry and ran away. Two days afterward she came to a kraal very hungry, and none would give her milk or food, now that her lord the king was dead, for all men hate the unfortunate. But at nightfall a little child, a girl, crept out and brought her corn to eat, and she blessed the child, and went on towards the mountains with her boy before the sun rose again, and there she must have perished, for none have seen her ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... the Castle of Montafilant, one of the apanages of the Rohan family, which passed with many others to the unfortunate Gilles de Bretagne, by his marriage with the heiress Francoise de Dinan. The castle is approached by a steep winding path, leading to the plateau upon which it stands. Before the use of firearms, its position rendered it impregnable. Of its seven ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... quarrels, Whom we properly deem to be teachers supreme in the sphere of Political Morals, May you win the renown that your efforts should crown and reward your assiduous labours In arranging the cares and embarrassed affairs that afflict your unfortunate neighbours! ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... each direction. Peggy did not wish to delegate to any of the other girls the responsibility of meeting Elaine, whom she regarded as her especial guest, and since Claire had come to the cottage on Priscilla's invitation, Peggy felt that it devolved on Priscilla to see her off, in spite of the unfortunate termination of ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... Such parochial witticisms may be laughed at to-day, but they often provided a stinging grievance in the past and were a handy weapon in neighbourly feuds. They were by no means limited to Cornwall, though the Duchy was very plentifully supplied. The typical instance in England is that of the unfortunate men of Gotham, whom it is amusing to find old Ray seriously defending in his Proverbs, where he says that "as for Gotham, it doth breed as wise people as any which causelessly laugh at their simplicity. Sure I am, ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... German Government concerning them with the utmost frankness and in the earnest hope that it is not mistaken in expecting action on the part of the Imperial German Government which will correct the unfortunate impressions which have been created, and vindicate once more the position of that Government with regard to the sacred ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... that his daughter shall be kindly treated in my household, and that no attempt whatever will be made to turn her from the religion she professes. As to your adventure with the crocodile, I do not think that your conscience need trouble you. It would certainly be unfortunate to meet in Upper Egypt a crocodile carrying off a peasant, and I am not called upon to give an opinion as to what would be the proper course to pursue under the circumstances; but as you are at present in a district where ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... listen, ladies gay! O Mary, at thy window be O me! what eyes hath love put in my head O mistress mine, where are you roaming? O my Luve's like a red, red rose On a day, alack the day! On a Poet's lips I slept Once did She hold the gorgeous East in fee One more Unfortunate One word is too often profaned O never say that I was false of heart On Linden, when the sun was low O saw ye bonnie Lesley O say what is that thing call'd Light O talk not to me of a name great in story Our bugles sang ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... awkward and slow with her feet, she was kind-hearted and quick to spare her friend the mortification which a poor and proud girl could not help feeling at such a moment. The unfortunate slipper was flying from hand to hand as the youths indulged in a boyish game of ball to tease the laughing girls, who hastened to disclaim all knowledge ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... did nothing. He was as incapable of composing a letter as of making a speech, and Tarleton had to write both for him. He would arrive in the morning when Tarleton was trying to get on with urgent correspondence or to frame questions to be asked of witnesses, and so take up his unfortunate secretary's time that it was almost impossible for him to get his work finished for the next meeting. He made the most exacting demands upon his overworked staff, showing as little consideration for them as he did grasp of the mass of detail they had to get through between committee ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... attempt at describing the horror which took possession of me as I realized that we could make no effort toward saving the unfortunate men, who were not the less to be pitied because they had brought about their own misery, and, unable longer to gaze at what was so soon to be such a terrible scene, I turned away with a mind to shut ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... of a Jawa, and set beneath exquisitely arched and penciled brows. Her forehead was like lustrous ivory and her lips like rose leaves. Her hair, which was as soft as the finest silk, was fastened up in masses of ravishing abundance. "I am," said she, "the daughter of that unfortunate Captain Keitt, who, though weak and a pirate, was not so wicked, I would have you know, as he has been painted. He would, doubtless, have been an honest man had he not been led astray by the villain Hunt, who so nearly compassed your destruction. He returned to this island before his death, ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... following the death of Caleb Warner were days of anxiety to other inhabitants of the little town who, like David, had purchased stock with glorious visions of sudden gain. In a short time the list of Warner's unfortunate investors was known and they were accorded various degrees of sympathy, rebuke or ridicule. The thing that hurt David was not so much the knowledge that some were speaking of him in condemnation or pity as the fact that he ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... amiable, delicate, beautiful, accomplished, but unfortunate woman, deeply in love with Sir Charles Grandison. Sir Charles married Harriet Byron.—S. Richardson, The History of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... the Place Royale, and which is elaborately described by Bassompierre. The French Kings had originally held their tourneys, tilts, and passages-at-arms in the Rue St. Antoine, opposite the palace of the Tournelles; but the unfortunate death of Henri II, who was killed there by the lance of the Duc de Montgomery, caused the spot to be abandoned, and they were subsequently transferred to the Place Royale, which had been built in the ancient park ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... walked a little apart from the rest. The thing, she felt, only admitted of one explanation, and she did not wish her companions to see her face for the next minute or two. Sproatly's diplomacy had had a most unfortunate result, and she was sensible of an almost intolerable disgust. She had kept faith with Gregory, at least, as far as it was possible to her, and he had utterly humiliated her. The affront he had put ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... experience would seem to shew, that the food of the common people in Scotland is not so suitable to the human constitution as that of their neighbours of the same rank in England. But it seems to be otherwise with potatoes. The chairmen, porters, and coal-heavers in London, and those unfortunate women who live by prostitution, the strongest men and the most beautiful women perhaps in the British dominions, are said to be, the greater part of them, from the lowest rank of people in Ireland, who are generally fed with this root. No food can afford a more decisive proof of its ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... of acres of potatoes and cabbages, and the rest pasture, except a little patch on which, he tells me, he grew vetches in summer for sale as green feed for cattle. Of beasts he has none, except dogs of some breed unknown either to dog-fanciers or naturalists, and an ass—the unfortunate creature who is made to drink the dregs of any sorrow falling upon Western Ireland. Put to work when not more than a year old, the poor animal becomes a stunted, withered phantasm of the curled darlings of the London ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... to the regimental or general hospital returned to duty, while of the men called well all were yellow, emaciated, and restless, or so drowsy that the sentries were found asleep on their posts at noonday. This unfortunate regiment was therefore taken from the front and set to guard the general ammunition depot, near headquarters. Without being once engaged in battle, so that it had not a single gunshot wound to report, the 16th New Hampshire ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... romantic ideas. She would be quite capable of interesting herself seriously in an interesting young man, like your friend, and doing her utmost to discourage a splendid suitor, like the prince. She would act sincerely and she would go very far. But it would be unfortunate for the young man," he added, after a pause, "for at the ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... graces in consequence of some rash demonstrations. After soliciting the honor of admission to this little circle, where he flattered himself he could snatch the blossom from the constituted authorities who guarded it, he was so unfortunate as to yawn in the middle of an explanation Dinah was favoring him with—for the fourth time, it is true—of the philosophy of Kant. Monsieur de la Thaumassiere, the grandson of the historian of Le Berry, was thenceforth regarded as a man entirely ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... theme of conversation throughout the land. Not more than two hours elapsed from the time demand was first made at Parker's house until the dead body of Edward Gorsuch was carried to Christiana. In that brief time the blood of strangers had been spilled in a sudden affray, an unfortunate man had been killed, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... thinking of my own griefs. I know these voices. The wives and children of my workmen, the poor and oppressed of the city are calling me. The people need me. Up, Gotzkowsky! give them your heart, your life. Endeavor to be a father to the unfortunate, and you will ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... of new pirraurus is a rare event or that the pirrauru relationship is a very temporary affair? Or does re-allotted simply mean that the names are called over? If the latter, the terminology is very unfortunate. Gason's statement is perfectly clear: once a pirrauru, always a pirrauru[162]. Again does it imply that the wishes[163] of the already existing pirraurus are consulted in the matter or not? If, as is stated, there is a good deal of ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... Mr. Rangely," she said, assuming an air of indignant surprise, "is it your idea of making yourself agreeable to tell an unfortunate girl that she is destined to be an old maid? I could stand being one well enough, but to be told that I've got to be is ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... clothes to make a proper appearance before the examiners. He failed in his examination, and then, in despair, he pawned the borrowed clothes, to the great anger of the publisher who had lent them. This failure in his medical examination, unfortunate as it then seemed, secured him to literature. From that time his pen was constantly busy for the reviews and magazines. His first work was An Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe, which, at least, prepared the ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... in quavering tones As a pang rippled over his face, "The life was too fast For the pleasure to last In my very unfortunate case; And I'm going"—he said as he turned to adjust A fuse ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... like yours. It was an admirable thought, indeed, that of at once obtaining heat and frightening the wolves away, by setting the tree on fire. That thought saved our lives as well as your own, for our fate would have been the same as those unfortunate travellers, whose horses you saw, and who brought the ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... exhort the clergy to follow this good example, because in a little time, those among them who are so unfortunate to have had their birth and education in this country, will think themselves abundantly happy when they can afford Irish crape, and an Athlone hat; and as to the others I shall not presume to direct them. I have indeed seen the present Archbishop of Dublin clad from head ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... to wean a little earlier or a little later, than to do so just at the close of summer or beginning of autumn, at which season bowel complaints are most common, most severe, and most dangerous. It is sufficiently unfortunate that teething should commence just at this period; but when we add another cause of irregular action, which we can control, to one which we cannot, ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... Paisiello. "But I cannot give up the habit I have contracted in addressing sovereigns, who, compared with you, are but pigmies. However, I will not forget your commands, and, if I have been unfortunate enough to offend, I must throw myself ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... as these she returned from her anxious search in the garden. As she entered her room, she saw upon her table a superb bouquet, just such a tribute as her loved Fritz had offered daily at her shrine before the queen's unfortunate discovery. With a loud cry of joy, she rushed to the table, seized the flowers, and pressed them to her lips; she then sought in the heart of her bouquet for the little note which she had ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... exemplified in a singular manner. Eugene Sue, you may remember, causes some of the most terrible events in the Mysteres de Paris to occur in the Allee des Venves, a fine avenue in the Champs Elysees. This has had the effect of giving the unfortunate Allee—though as quiet, modest, well-behaved, moral street as need be—a detestable reputation; people have shunned it as if it were a cavern of cutthroats—those condemned to live in it have felt themselves quasi-infamous—its rents have fallen, its shops stood empty, ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... visible in the halls of justice, in the face of a vast technical equipment for combating mendacity, is ten times more obvious in freer fields. Any man who is so unfortunate as to have a serious controversy with a woman, say in the departments of finance, theology or amour, must inevitably carry away from it a sense of having passed through a dangerous and almost gruesome experience. Women not only bite in the clinches; they bite ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... the two gentlemen had paid the bill—intending to leave the inn the first thing in the morning. The traveler with the knapsack paid his share in money. The other unfortunate gentleman looked into his purse, and found only a shilling and a sixpence in it. He asked Mrs. Rook if she could change a bank-note. She told him it could be done, provided the note was for no considerable sum of money. Upon that he opened his pocketbook ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... It is unfortunate that our information concerning the earliest days of the University is comparatively meager. The collections of old newspapers and other original sources in the University Library have been utilized, but these are not as extensive as ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... endeavored to hit it in the eye with cones, thinking to drive it away. But the grizzly only became more infuriated, and began a brisk war-dance around the tree, howling all the while in a terrible manner. At length the branch upon which the hunter was sitting began to give way, and the unfortunate man felt himself doomed to certain death. Closing his eyes, he resigned himself to the worst, when, instead of falling, as he expected, into the open jaws of the huge beast, he, together with the heavy branch upon which ...
— Harper's Young People, June 8, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... he resumed, "since your unfortunate correspondence with the major show me that she is an old hand at deceit. The moment she is threatened with exposure—exposure of some kind, there can be no doubt, after what you discovered in London—she turns your honorable silence to the best possible account, and leaves the ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... never cease to remember. Every Saturday he caused the pupils to repeat a prayer which he had composed for their use; and in hearing which he stood over each with a paper ruler, ready, in the event of omission of word or phrase, to strike down the unfortunate offender, who all the while drooped tremblingly before him. On one of these days of extorted prayer, I was found at fault in my grammar lesson, and the offence was deemed worthy of peculiar castigation. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... with Lieutenant Helm, are prisoners somewhere in the camp; but the Lieutenant's wife is safe with the Silver-man's family across the river. The Indians hold these in hope of ransom, and wreak their vengeance upon the common soldiers who were so unfortunate as to fall into their hands alive. Yet few, I think, ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... secure his good opinion; for to be unaffected was all that a pretty girl could want to make her mind as captivating as her person. The friendliness of his disposition made him happy in accommodating those, whose situation might be considered, in comparison with the past, as unfortunate. In showing kindness to his cousins therefore he had the real satisfaction of a good heart; and in settling a family of females only in his cottage, he had all the satisfaction of a sportsman; for a sportsman, though he ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... out on the plain. It was the same sandy plain over which he had fled when he had led Lynch to Poison Spring, and as he went on at dawn Wunpost felt the first vague misgivings for his part in that unfortunate affair. It had lost him a lot of friends and steeled his enemies against him—Lynch no longer was working by the day—and sooner or later it was likely to cost him dear, for no man can win all the time. Yet he had thrown down the gauntlet, ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... the count, noticing how he patted the puppy and settled it in his lap as the carriage resumed its even rolling down the broad, beautiful avenue. "One moment upholding the rights of birth, the next rebelling against the injustice of it. Are your sympathies with the unfortunate so keen, monsieur, that even this stray cur ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... now in the most unfortunate position imaginable. Neither dared to speak, for fear of disclosing their emotions. Both felt the awkwardness of the silence, and both felt the danger of breaking it. Henry twirled the tassel of the window drapery, and Emily twisted her pocket-handkerchief ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... None but the chief treasurer was allowed to have anything to do with that branch of industry, and, while he handed over part of his gains to the Emperor, he kept the greater part for himself, and thus grew wealthy at the expense of the unfortunate public. ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... and wide in the wilds of Canada, and along the course of the great western waters, other adventurers, intent on the same objects, were traversing the watery wastes of the Pacific and skirting the northwest coast of America. The last voyage of that renowned but unfortunate discoverer, Captain Cook, had made known the vast quantities of the sea-otter to be found along that coast, and the immense prices to be obtained for its fur in China. It was as if a new gold coast had been discovered. Individuals from various countries dashed into this lucrative ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... all these things for money and roused no antagonism in her community until she was unfortunate enough to have dealings with a maid-servant in a Wiltshire family. It is impossible to get behind the few hints given us by the cautious writer. The members of the family, evidently one of some standing in Wiltshire, became ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... a civil man, and in offering to purchase my fishing-rod, meant to do me a kindness, while, at the same time, he gratified himself; so I gave him a fly, with which he was greatly delighted; I told him likewise how to use it. But if my unfortunate fly has since come into play, at the end of such a line and such a rod as the keeper of the Black Eagle produced, I am quite sure that it has caught no fish, if, indeed, it be not long ago "fathoms deep" under ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... three children from a tinker, a grandmother. Carew once wheedled a gentleman, who boasted that he could not be taken in by beggars, into giving him liberal alms twice in one day—in the morning as an unfortunate blacksmith, whose all had been destroyed by fire; whilst in the afternoon, on crutches, his face 'pale and sickly, his gestures very expressive of pain,' he pleaded as a disabled tinner, who, from 'the damps and hardships he had suffered ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... hours and bad air. Thus the average human youth, "With all the sweetness of the common dawn," is flung into the vortex of industrial life wherein the everyday tragedy escapes us save when one of them becomes conspicuously unfortunate. Twice in ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams |
